Solehi Teacher Is Finalist For Shuttle Flight

A 49-year-old robotics teacher in the Southern Lehigh School District was one of eight teachers in Pennsylvania selected this week as candidates for a space shuttle flight early next year.

Walter Tremer of Limeport, director of future technology and the gifted program in Southern Lehigh, said he was notified Tuesday and has been "riding a high" ever since.

He was chosen as a semifinalist from a pool of 578 applicants in the state. The eight candidates will now undergo extensive interviewing by state Department of Education officials during April.

Two finalists will be selected by May 1 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Teacher in Space program, proposed in November by President Reagan, who wants the first civilian in space to be a teacher.

The two teachers from each of the 50 states will then be interviewed by a national review panel in May, and the field will be narrowed to 10 based on those interviews. The finalists will go to Johnson Air Force Base in Texas during the summer for physical tests.NASA officials will select one teacher to join six or seven astronauts scheduled for a shuttle flight in early 1986.

More than 7,000 teachers applied for the program nationally.

"I thought it would be a good opportunity to use my robots in space," said Tremer, who speaks five languages. "I never had a childhood desire to be an astronaut, but I've been dabbling in astronomy and high-tech for years."

Tremer, an archaeologist for 17 years, has been a teacher in the Southern Lehigh district for six years. "It's funny. It's like I've gone from two million years ago into the future."

He believes his interest in robotics was the reason he was chosen as a semifinalist. Tremer explained that part of the application required teachers to come up with a project they could work on during the flight. "I proposed running small robots through some experiments to see how they might be useful on future flights," he said.

Southern Lehigh Superintendent Michael Greene said, "I think it's absolutely fantastic that he was selected. He's the extraordinary icing on a great cake."

Tremer was chosen, Greene said, because he is multilingual, is a "heavy team member" and has an "eye to the future." Greene called Tremer an "interesting paradox" because he will be digging ruins at one time and working on robots at another.

Also selected from Pennsylvania were: Paul Anater of West Mifflin School District; Kathleen Bartuska of the Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont; Anthony Costanzo of Interboro School District; Max Hunsicker of North Lebanon School District; Jeffrey Mansfield of the Greensburg/Salem School District; Patricia Palazzolo of the Clairton School District and Robert Stamper of the Cheltenham School District.

One disappointed applicant on the distaff side was Patricia Rader, 47, of Breinigsville R. 2, a native of Fogelsville and an English teacher at Parkland High School for the past eight years. Having spent so much time raising her five children, Rader never had the opportunity to pursue a sport that has always intrigued her - skydiving.

So when she heard about the "Teacher in Space" program last fall, she thought she could take the highest flyer of all by entering her name.

"My three boys and two girls were all excited. My son James, 28, is a private pilot, and I have enjoyed flying with him. He is trying to become an Army pilot. Another son, Geoff, 24, is a senior at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia." Rader said.

Rader's interest in space travel was whetted when she visited NASA's Space Center at Cape Kennedy five years ago, collected loads of literature and was thrilled to see displays of astronaut capsules retrieved from historic space flights. One of her recollections was that the crew's compartment was so cramped.

The teacher, who allowed that she has been a bit adventuresome since childhood, said she would have no fear of going up in the space shuttle propelled by rockets that have power equivalent to that of a small nuclear device. NASA has never lost an astronaut in flight. Three crewmen were killed during a countdown rehearsal on the launch pad when an electrical spark started a fire.

"The personal project I proposed was to do a documentary of the flight from the viewpoint of a civilian. I wanted to do the television camera work, sound recording and include some of the psychological aspects of space travel. Whenever they show a report on the space shuttle on television, we always see the astronauts in their scientific roles, carrying out their experiments," the teacher observed.

While her children were all rooting for her, Rader's parents, Henry and Ellen Gernerd of Fogelsville, were stunned by the initial news that she had filed an application. Upon receiving word on the telephone one day, her father, a retired schoolteacher and currently president of the Parkland School Board, paused for a lengthy moment, turned to his wife and was heard to say, "Now she wants to travel in space."